Fermilab Accounts

This should run you through the process of setting up your Fermilab Services account and your Kerberos account, hopefully without problems!

Firstly, go to This page and click on Accounts and Passwords. As you will be working from Lancaster and are not hired by Fermilab, you are counted as an Off-Site Visitor, so go to New Accounts > Visitors and follow the steps there.

Step two has you fill in a request form, where it asks you to provide your affiliation (Lancaster), and will ask for a Fermilab contact name, which will probably be a spokesperson for your experiment (unless given instructions otherwise), and an Institution Point of contact name, which should be your supervisor. You will also be provided with an initial password for your Services and Kerberos accounts, which you should make note of. Complete the rest of the form and click submit.

Within 24 hours, you should receive an email from Fermilab Service Desk which will detail your Fermilab ID Number/principal (username) and the ID expiration date. You should then follow the instructions in the email to change the services and Kerberos account passwords.

The email should also note the nodes you have access to (e.g. uboonegpvmXX), which can be logged in to by first requesting a Kerberos ticket:
kinit fermilab_username@FNAL.GOV
and you should then be able to ssh in to your experiments machines:
ssh fermilab_username@computername.fnal.gov
So for example, for MicroBoone, it should be:
ssh fermliab_username@uboonegpvm01.fnal.gov

If anything goes wrong and you find you cannot log in to the Fermilab machines, call Fermilab Service Desk on (+1)630-840-2345 to request new passwords, where you will have to provide your Fermilab ID and principal.